"Novaya Gazeta": Chechen money discovered in "laundromat scheme"

Officials of the Chechen Ministry of Construction paid their foreign contractors through the "laundromat scheme", a network of one-day "money laundering" companies. 22 billion US dollars were withdrawn from Russia through such companies. This was reported by the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" with reference to the story of the construction of a brick factory in Grozny, investigated together with the Slovenian edition "Delo".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that a large factory for the production of facade bricks was opened in the village of Andreevskaya Dolina of the Zavodskoi District of Grozny in October 2014.

The factory's contractors were representatives of the Slovenian company "Omnia Arhing".

The contract was signed with the Chechen Ministry of Construction. However, the money came to the accounts of the "Omnia Arhing" at the Slovenian NLB bank from British one-day companies, including "Ronida Invest LLP" and "Drayscott Overseas LLP" (4.3 million US dollars in 2012 and 0.9 million US dollars in 2014). Both of those companies are key participants of the scheme, which made it possible to withdraw more than 20 billion US dollars from Russia.

Shamkhan Aslakhadjiev was mentioned as the owner of Limited Liability Company (LLC) "Grozstroikeram" (the company owning the brick factory). However, the "Novaya Gazeta" reports that the "Omnia Arhing" Company was invited to the tender by LLC "City-Story", which also took part in the construction of the factory. This is a major state contractor, affiliated with associates of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who controls the construction complex of the republic.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.